Ghosts, Guests Liven Up DC Cemetery For Halloween Bash

Ghosts of congressmen, composers and murder victims will rise again
to tell their tales to guests brave enough to visit their graves at the
Congressional Cemetery at the Historical Congressional Cemetery's Ghosts
and Goblets.

The Historical Congressional Cemetery will host its
annual Halloween party tonight from 8 p.m.-1 a.m. in the Congressional
Cemetery located on E Street Southeast in Washington, D.C.

"And
then why not have a Halloween party in the cemetery?" Program Director
Lauren Maloy said. "So it's incredibly appropriate [The Historical
Congressional Cemetery] think[s]."

At the events, partygoers can
take guided tours that will include "visits" from notable and less-known
residents of the cemetery, portrayed by actors, who will give guests
information about residents' lives, Maloy said.

Two of the notable residents telling their tales will be composer
John Philip Sousa and Mary Ann Hall, who owned a brothel during the
Civil War era where the National Museum of the American Indian now
stands, Maloy said.

"She's just an intriguing character for us, so I'm glad she'll be able to make it," she said.

Hall's
grave is marked by a marble tombstone, which features a woman crying
over an urn. She is buried near her mother and sister, according to the
Smithsonian Institute.

The tour will also include horror stories, including that of a woman who was murdered by her lover on a park bench, Maloy said.

"My
favorite part of the event [is] probably the tours just because it's
fun to see people dress up and kinda bring these people to life," she
said. "I walk around these gravestones all day and it's fun to see
people's interpretations of them."

The Cemetery does not have any ghosts haunting it, with the belief that ghosts do not haunt their graves, she said.

The Congressional Cemetery is 260 years old and holds the burial
sites of 65,000 people, including congressmen, war heroes and J. Edgar
Hoover. The first tombstones dates back to 1804, according to an article
from the Evening Star dated June 4, 1857 on the cemetery's website.

Tickets
for the event cost $60 for general admission, which includes a drink
ticket for four drinks, and $80 for the VIP ticket, which adds premium
cocktails in the Public Vault and a year-long membership to the
Historical Congressional Cemetery.

Tickets are also being sold through a Living Social deal, which includes a general admission ticket for $29.

The cemetery also holds monuments, including those to Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams, according to a June 15, 1854 Evening Star article on the website.